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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The "Stinking Maneuver" II

In 1990, Shimon Peres and then-Shas leader Aryeh Deri attempted to bring down the government of then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir by leaving their national unity government with Shamir and installing Peres as Prime Minister. The incident was dubbed the "stinking maneuver" by Peres' Labor party rival Yitzchak Rabin. It failed when Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox leader Rabbi Eliezer Menachem Mann Shach zt"l (may the memory of the righteous be blessed) refused to go along with it. Deri was forced back into the government and Labor was left in opposition.

Early Wednesday morning, a different stinking maneuver took place in Israel, one which will likely leave Prime Minister Ehud Korruption Olmert in power at least until sometime in 2009.
Labor and Kadima agreed late Tuesday night to work together to reject any proposal which calls for the dissolution of the Knesset, whether it is brought to the floor on Wednesday, or any time in the coming weeks.

The agreement was a result of a meeting between Labor party secretary-general Eitan Cabel and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Tzahi Hanegbi (Kadima) which lasted several hours, and allowed both parties to avoid a potentially hazardous political showdown.

According to the agreement, the Kadima party promised to convene a committee on Wednesday which would begin the process of primaries for choosing a new chairperson. On Monday of next week, the Kadima faction will discuss the results, and 10 days later the Kadima council will convene to determine an exact date for primary elections, to be held before September 25. Should a run-off election be needed as well, that, too, will be held before September 25.
Let's assume the primary takes place on September 25. If someone other than Olmert lives, the government will likely survive until the end of its term in November 2010, because Barak and Labor have no desire to go to elections in which the only winners will be Binyamin Netanyahu and the Likud. If Olmert wins, then either Labor (and Shas) will suddenly find their moral principles and bring down the government - or more likely they will find another excuse not to find the moral principles this country's 'leaders' lack. And even if Olmert's government is brought down, the Knesset will be in recess on September 25 (less than a week before the Jewish New Year) until after the Holidays (probably reconvening on October 27). All of that means that in the best case scenario, if the Knesset votes no-confidence on the day it convenes for the winter session for the first time (not likely), elections could be held in late January or early February of 2009.

Something really stinks here.

1 Comments:

At 9:19 AM, Blogger NormanF said...

That's why Israelis are cynical about their politicians and have low trust in them. The most damaged person in all this is Ehud Barak who has shown he can tolerate anything just to keep his office. After all, who cares that he and Ehud Olmert stand for the same thing? Israeli politics is filled with a stench that just turns the average person in the street off.

 

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